An instituted smile

For now I’ll write like
them. No other way
to show you, I suppose,
while I smile to you
in such a vivid backhand.
Where else can I go
to witness a shark in Aesop
ask, “Yours is the trench,
mine the fence, and there is
no other way.” So read
smiling like this one

to watch whole limbs
and digits fall away
like the rest of you.
But you probably can’t
read so hire someone
to do it for you,

since you can’t for yourself.

___

Yet again I’m reminded how painful it is to deal with willful ignorance. People are proud, proud I tell you, of being unable to do something, and act like anyone who can does so only to fill some void or sell penny insults. I believe in karma, and it applies even to art and the people who can swallow only the smallest portions of it.